


Pins and Paint

by Mizbingley



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Happy birthday Alex!, Slice of Life, sand siblings - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:32:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2005893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizbingley/pseuds/Mizbingley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief glimpse into some domestic scenes with the kazekage and his siblings. Just a meandering slice of life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Paint

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX you are such a bomb-ass friend and I hope you enjoy this.

Temari took a deep breath before knocking on the bathroom door. She closed her eyes and reminded herself that patience is a virtue both on the field and in the home. Her left hand poised over the door, she decided to inhale calmly just one more time.

“Kankuro?”

“Yea?”

“You decent?” The door creaked in response, pushed open by Kankuro’s foot.

            “Getting there,” he said, leaning in close to the mirror and dotting on some more purple under his left eye. Temari’s hand clenched and unclenched while she watched her brother carefully apply his signature purple designs. Recently, they had assumed an unusually beautiful color of purple. Little bit of shimmer, actually. This purple had some dimension to it, complex and rich. It had been a good lipstick. Now it was a good nub.

            “Any particular reason,” Temari said, tapping her fingers on the counter, “you decided to just… grab one of my tubes of lipstick rather than buy more paint?” One of Kankuro’s eyebrows lifted and he looked at Temari in the mirror.

            “I didn’t?” She looked pointedly at the nearly used up tube in his hand. “I didn’t! This is mine, I bought this! I got the same one as yours.” Her eyes narrowed as she jutted out her lower lip.

“Then why can’t I find mine?”

            Kankuro rolled his eyes and twisted the cap back on with a flourish. “Probably because you’re a pig, Tem,” he scoffed, and hopped off the bathroom counter. “I really did buy this one myself, I just wanted to try it out.” Temari snatched the tube and looked at the bottom for her initials—which weren’t there. Sighing, she handed it back to him.

“It’s a nice color, right?”

“It’s a great color!” he said earnestly. “I just think I’m gonna stick to the paint though, it smudges less.”

            “Do what you want,” she shrugged, and walked out of the bathroom scratching the back of her head. “Sorry I got on your case. I feel like I’m losing it, I know I can be a little messy-“ Kankuro snorted, “-but it’s like… an organized mess, you know?” Kankuro mirrored her shrug and walked back to his room.

            “Sorry sis. If I see it turn up, I’ll tell you.” He slouched into his room, closed the door quietly and broke into a severe sweat. Slumping down, he sat with his head against the wood before crawling over to his trashcan and rifling around the papers and broken bits of wood before finding the twin of the tube in his pocket. Picking it up carefully, he surveyed the damage it had sustained when he stepped on it in the bathroom last week.

            He squinted at the barely intelligible TEM scratched in the bottom and cursed rapidly under his breath. Forging her handwriting would be easy, but how much had she used when he smashed it? And would she notice if he guessed wrong? He loosened his collar. His siblings had always been a little frightening, but since the extraction of the Ichibi, Kankuro almost missed his brother’s temper when compared to his sister’s.


	2. Pins

            “How long’s that hole been there?” Kankuro said, picking up his little brother’s arm to examine the huge tear on the elbow of his kage robes. Gaara shrugged and gently pulled his arm back to continue sorting through his morning papers. “Gaara?”

His gaze shifted from his papers to nothing in particular as he thought.

            “Mm…some time now I suppose.” Kankuro huffed at this. Gaara was pleasant to talk to but difficult to communicate with.

            “Well gimme them,” he said, holding out a hand. Temari peered up from her breakfast and gave them both a look. Gaara observed how was curiously similar Temari’s expressions were to Kankuro’s. They both lifted their eyebrows the same way—something Gaara couldn’t do. There was a brief period where he practiced the look in the mirror, lifting the arch of his eye with his finger and then releasing it, trying to make it stay, but it never produced the same effect. Kankuro looked at him expectantly.

            “We should send those to a nice tailor, Kankuro,” Temari said through a mouthful of food. “Not patch them up ourselves.”

            “I do not _patch_ ,” Kankuro frowned, and prodded Gaara’s shoulder. “I take my craft very seriously, from the carving _to the sewing_. Give them here, Gaara, you can’t walk around looking like that.” Gaara pursed his lips and unfastened his outer robes.

*          *          *

            “Well, I won’t be able to repair it perfectly,” Kankuro explained, looking closely at the fabric under the light in his work room. “There’s no way—you can’t just, like, make the hole disappear completely in this kind of fabric.” Gaara nodded and sat down on a work stool. “I mean, maybe for something small I could make it pretty unnoticeable but with this kind of hole… we’d probably have to replace the whole sleeve or something.” Gaara shook his head.

            “That won’t be necessary, it’s perfectly functional. You don’t need to make extra work for yourself.”

            “Are you sure?” He merely nodded in response and thinned his lips in the way that meant it was his final word.

            “Alright then.” Kankuro swiveled around and began pinning the area in need of repair. “You look so much like Temari when you do that, it’s so eerie.” Gaara’s eyes widened in surprised.

“Do what?” Kankuro pointed to his lips and imitated his brother’s face.

            “Do that, the lip thing. You guys both do that. It’s like no one’s gonna get anything more out of you after that. Kinda funny.” Gaara placed his chin in his hand and gave a small smile.

“You think?”

            “Yea, it’s _really annoying_ ,” Kankuro grumped, and began threading a needle. Gaara let his smile widen a little as he looked around Kankuro’s workshop.

“Kankuro?”

“Yea?”

“Is that Temari’s lipstick?” Gaara pointed at the new tube lying in one of the open drawers.

            “Ah, no,” Kankuro said quickly and shoved the drawer shut with his foot. “No no, I’m trying out a new thing with my face paint.”

            “Ah, I see,” Gaara said thoughtfully, and peered at his brother’s face. “I don’t think I see much of a difference, but I don’t believe I’m the best when it comes to judging colors,” he said and made his way to the door. “Thank you for doing this, Kankuro.”

            “Anytime,” he mumbled, holding some pins in his mouth. He remained bent over the robe until Gaara left, and then leaned back, letting the pins fall. Reopening the drawer, Kankuro pulled out the tube he had bought to replace the one he shattered. He looked critically at the bottom. The freshly scratched TEM looked alright, but he still wasn’t sure how much the original had been used. He sighed and applied a fresh coat of the purple carefully over his usual face paint. His lips were beginning to get chapped.


	3. Plaque

            This was ten. She had been counting for the past five minutes, and now it was ten times Gaara had done the same strange movement with his lip. She leaned forward over the book she was reading and watched as his lip twitched upwards, his teeth ground audibly, and his eyes narrowed in pain. Eleven.

“Gaara… are you okay?” He jerked his head up.

“Yes. No. Yes.”

“Gaara.”

“Yes.” Temari sighed and lifted herself off the couch.

            “Where does it hurt?” Gaara frowned and pointed to his mouth. “Inside?” He nodded. She gently tipped his chin back and peered inside. “Hm…” Gaara sat up in surprise when she prodded a finger against his gums and resisted the urge to shut his mouth in pain. “Your gums look a little inflamed, we should probably get someone to see you.” She wiped her hand on her skirt and scratched her chin in thought. “I’m going to go make some calls, stay put.”

            “Temari, I really don’t think—“ he began, but faltered when she shut her mouth into a thin line. “If you insist,” he finished a little weakly. Gaara sat poking around in his mouth and wincing while he heard Temari murmuring softly on the phone. He felt, pressing his gums experimentally, a little bothered by how painful this experience really was. His sand was unfortunately unable to protect him from all the microscopic parts of his own body. Temari walked back in tying up her hair.

“I just spoke to the dentist, he said he’d be happy to see our kazekage after hours. Get your shoes.”

*          *          *

            “You really don’t have to come with me,” Gaara said as they walked down a side street. The sun spilled orange down the road, and made the windows glint like melting gold. Temari sniffed.

            “I don’t want you to run off like some wounded animal, Gaara. I know you’re not overly fond of doctors, but you have to take care of yourself.” They paused on the sidewalk and watched the sun dipping low. “Besides, walking with me isn’t so terrible.”

            “Of course not,” Gaara said softly. He turned his head away from the sun, squinting from the light. “Temari, look…” he breathed. Temari glanced over at possibly the mangiest cat she’d ever seen ambling over towards Gaara. He stood stone still.

            “Aw Gaara, no…” she said, watching as he let the cat rub itself against his legs. “That cat is so—“

            “So friendly,” he muttered, and bent down carefully to scratch the alley cat behind its ears. “Animals never used to approach me before, you know,” he said, petting it gently from head to tail. Temari sighed.

            “We better get going Gaara, the doctor is doing us a favor seeing you so late,” she entreated, and gave the back of his shirt a pull. “And now we’ll have to hose you down to get rid of all those fleas.”

*          *          *

            Gaara sat glowering, holding an ice pack against a mouth full of gauze. Temari bit the inside of her cheek to stop from laughing.

            “Kazekage, you really must be more careful about those teeth of yours, or you’ll have to endure more painful sessions like these,” the dentist said nervously, plucking a fresh toothbrush and handing it to him. Gaara responded with something muffled by the gauze and anesthetic currently filling his mouth.

            “We’ll keep a better eye on it, doctor,” Temari said, patting Gaara’s knee. “Thank you for seeing us so late.” Gaara glared at his sister. His arms remained crossed as they exited the emergency center.

            “Come on Gaara, cheer up,” Temari said kindly, throwing an arm around her youngest brother’s shoulders. “Tell you what—we’ll find you a nice, filthy stray cat that you can pet to your heart’s content. Will that make up for this?” His arms loosened their angry grip, although he still frowned at his feet as they walked. At least, she thought he was frowning—considering how much work the doctor had done, it could easily be the only shape his mouth could currently form. 


	4. Peace

            “Will you quit?” Kankuro said irritably, watching Temari toss another piece of leftover lizard to the cat. “It’s been here for two days and it’s too comfortable already.”

            “It’s Bibi’s house too, why shouldn’t she be comfortable,” Temari said, picking her up and petting her neck.

            “I don’t get that name,” Kankuro huffed, and sat back in his chair. They had decided to have dinner outside on the large terrace, and the sun was all but gone past the horizon. He flapped his fan forcefully at the noseeums that were beginning to find their way up his nose.

            “It’s a diminutive of her full name,” Gaara said quietly, bringing out a tray of fruits. Kankuro picked up a peach and, squinting, looked at him through one eye.

            “Which is?”

            “Ichibi,” Gaara said matter-of-factly, and picked up the new addition from Temari’s arms. “She has one tail too.” Kankuro guffawed loudly, spraying bits of peach on the floor.

            “Kankuro! Gross!” Temari frowned, throwing her napkin at him. He sheepishly patted away the fruit around his mouth, as Bibi leapt from Gaara’s arms onto the floor, lapping up what was left.

            “She’s tidier than you, Tem,” Kankuro said, rolling the peach pit around his mouth.

            “She looks much nicer now that she’s clean,” Temari said, plucking a few grapes off the plate. Gaara sat down lightly and patted Bibi as she began cleaning her paws.

            “Speaking of tidy,” Kankuro said suddenly, and reached into his pocket, producing the replacement lipstick. “Look what I found!” Temari reached across the table and studied the tube.

            “Where’d you find this?”

            “Uh… Bibi, actually,” Kankuro said slowly, watching the cat swat at a moth. “She was tossing something around earlier today, guess she found it under the couch or something.”

            “Interesting,” Temari said, twisting it open and eyeing it. “You know, the next time you break something of mine, you can just replace it. You don’t need to go through all that trouble replicating the original.” Kankuro sat incredibly still, waiting for the backlash.

            “How did you know?”

            “You’re a terrible liar, Kankuro,” Temari yawned, settling into her chair. “There’s a reason we’ve encouraged you and the puppets. They have better poker faces.” Gaara nodded wisely at this, lying down and setting the cat on his stomach.

            Kankuro groaned and leaned back as well, staring at the torches lit to ward off mosquitoes. Bibi’s purr filled the silence as the three siblings sat in the dying heat of the day, eyes half-lidded with sleep, looking at and saying nothing in particular, basking in the peace of the oncoming night.


End file.
